


Red and Gold (Seeing Color but not Seeing What’s Behind the Mask Remix)

by navaan



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Identity Porn, M/M, Remix, Romantic Soulmates, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29599323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Steve goes down in the ice regretting he never found his soulmate.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 9
Kudos: 94
Collections: 2021 Captain America/Iron Man Remix Madness





	Red and Gold (Seeing Color but not Seeing What’s Behind the Mask Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cathalinaheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Seeing in Color](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085671) by [Cathalinaheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart/pseuds/Cathalinaheart). 



> Inspired by [**Seeing in Color**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22085671) (300 words) by [**Cathalinaheart**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cathalinaheart)

Not everyone got to the happy ending. Steve had always known that but it was strange to hear his mother admit to it. She’d been talking about his soulmate waiting out there for him somewhere as she usually did when Steve was in bed with a fever, coughing so hard until his chest ached.

“When will I meet them?”

“Nobody knows if they’ll ever meet their other,” his mother had explained. “Some may meet them when they’re children. Some might never find them.”

“Why?”

“So many reasons, Steve.” His mother had smiled sadly. She was leaning close to whisper so his father wouldn’t hear them. “Way too many things can happen. There are no guarantees and not everyone gets that happy ending. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go looking. You should ever be afraid to look for it.”

He learned much later, that his father never saw the world in color, that his mother had started seeing colors when she was very young when she met her soulmate, who had died in their little village in Ireland at the age of fifteen.

Life was no fairy tale — but that didn’t mean you had to despair.

* * *

The explosion that took Bucky was a deep-dark grey mixed with highlights white, swallowed by black smoke. The sky was shades of grey above a grey plane that he was holding on to for dear life. Beneath him, the ice was a stark-crystalline white with some lingering grey shadows and the ocean a deceptively cold-grey surface — a mirror waiting to swallow him whole.

When he finally fell, he thought: _I wonder what color’s like._

Not everyone got the happy ending in life, in this war, in this search for the other half you were missing.

Not everyone got to find their soulmate before their time was up.

There were no guarantees.

Not even for Captain America.

It was time to bid this monochromatic world good-bye.

* * *

The cold had seeped into Steve’s very bones and his joints throbbed and tingled from the sudden warmth. He was shivering and sore all over.

Ice.

Ocean.

Darkness.

He remembered falling, remembered the dizziness of crashing into the drift ice, water lapping at his feet before he could shake it and find purchase. Then the inky blackness of the ocean had taken him and the last thing he could recall was the eerie feeling of drowning, slipping away into unconsciousness.

A shadow moved above him and he tried to open his eyes. “He’s waking up,” a male voice said.

“How can he even be alive, Hank?” A woman. He caught a glimpse of a bright grey skirt and black leggings. When he blinked up, he saw a worried-looking woman wearing a strange costume.

He is lying on a slab.

Alarmed he tried to sit up.

The woman screamed.

“What the hell is going on?” Steve shouted, poised to jump at the man beside her.

“Captain, stop!” a new voice shouted and he was grabbed and pulled back, fingers digging into his shoulders painfully hard, inhuman.

He tried to whirl around but he was still dizzy and slower than usual — and he came face to face with an assailant wearing a Viking helmet. “What’s this? Halloween?” he spat.

“Says the man wearing the tattered red white blue.” The person holding his shoulder in an iron grip hadn’t loosened his hold on him even by a fraction — and his voice sounded strangely metallic and artificial. “You’re safe.”

“We’re the Avengers, Captain America. We’re on the same side. If there are any sides…”

They were all speaking English. It was no reason to relax. After al Hydra had agents everywhere…

“What do you mean?” Steve asked. The fight was bleeding out of him, as he studied their wide-eyed stares and their stances — and the blinking equipment all around them

“War is over, Cap,” the metallic voice behind him said, and finally the man let go of Steve’s shoulder, giving it a sympathetic pat. “You slept for a long time.”

This time he did manage to spin himself around — the hard fingers, the metallic voice. An automaton? He came face to face with a metal mask, light and dark greys forming a face before the room swam before his eyes and greys turned to cloches of red, and gold, eyeslits flickering with a white-blue light…

Colors. Rich like he had always imagined them.

The robot — no, man? — took a step away. Why was he stepping away? And then it fell into place.

“Hello, Captain. I’m Iron Man,” the robot said as if nothing world-changing had happened a mere second ago.

Soulmate. Did machines have souls? No, this was a man. This was armor. Like the rest of them, this man was wearing a costume of some sort.

His soulmate was wearing armor.

“Please call me, Steve,” Steve replied slowly, testing the words and searching the mask for any sign of emotion, any hint of what kind of face was hidden underneath. Then he added, “I’m so happy to finally meet you, _soulmate_.” He breathed out the last word softly like it was something precious.

The armor halted all movement and everyone else seemed to be holding a collective breath, watching them.

"Are you… do you really…?" Iron Man asked.

“Captain America? Yes. Do I see color now? Yes. I’ve been waiting for this…” He couldn’t stop staring.

Behind him, the woman moved. “Shellhead? You see color now? Did this just happen? Right here? With Captain America? He just woke up! Say something. This is exciting!”

"Oh. Wow. I'm sorry… just. I have a hard time believing this is real."

Steve kept on staring, took in how the armor moved, how the joints worked flawlessly enough to make the motions seem human. His hand shot out to cup the metal with one hand. It was cool against his hand. He wanted to sag forward, let himself fall against that person he’d been looking for all his life. Instead, the armor slumped slightly and they were leaning against each other, arms reaching up in a clumsy embrace.

"You feel real to me," he nearly whispered. “Very real. Even though none of this makes sense to me.”. Steve gently knocked against the metal.

“Mmm? Oh, yeah, that. Hi,” the man said. “I am Iron Man. I already said that, didn’t I?”

It made no sense to Steve still.

But he would figure it out.

He had found his soulmate.

Everything would be alright now.

* * *

By the time Steve met Tony Stark, he was still reeling with the shock of having woken up in the future — which was unbelievable and overwhelming and all in vibrant colors like his dreams. He had thought he’d be able to deal with anything this strange new world would throw at him but the mansion he found himself in was grand and intimidating.

And his soulmate… He’d found him and hadn’t even been able to touch.

Now he was gone — off to do his work or something, having left him here to settle in on his own. It was — distressing.

A man in a sleek black suit and tie stepped into the door. He had a handsome face — exactly the kind that would have turned his head had the circumstances been different. “Captain America? I’m Tony Stark. Iron Man asked me to welcome you.”

“He did? Where is he? When will he be back?”

“He’ll be back,” Tony said carefully. “He works for me. I’m sorry, I keep him busy a lot. Let me show you around.”

“You’re his boss? He’s your bodyguard.” This was the man who required Iron Man to keep his identity a secret. This was why he had yet to even see his soulmate without that red and gold mask.

“Yes, hi, I’m Tony Stark,” Tony said softly and then smiled. Then he reached out to cup Steve’s face with one hand. It was like an incidental mirroring of his previous gesture when he’d touched Iron Man for the first time. "I guess there are some things I should tell you about myself — and about Iron Man."

Steve started, wanted to protest, push the man away, but he was caught in that piercing blue gaze like a deer in the headlights, his own eyes drawn to the enticing pink of the man’s lips. “Oh,” he said faintly and watched as Stark reached for Steve’s hand to place it on his chest, where he could feel something hard — like metal.

Tony nudged his fingers towards that, towards the buttons of his shirt…

But Steve had already figured out what he was supposed to understand when the slightest glimmer of metallic red peaked out from underneath the white dress shirt and leaned in to kiss his soulmate for the very first time.

Not everyone got their happy ending. But some people got lucky and got something better — a tantalizing beginning.


End file.
